Janus
Two-faced Roman god of gates and thresholds with no Greek counterpart. Livy makes his temple Numa's index of war and peace (open at war, shut at peace); Virgil gives him the Gates of War in Latium and a place among the ancestral kings beside Saturn; Ovid makes him father of the nymph Canens and puts a hot spring beside his shrine.
Why this wins its question: Encyclopaedias say "god of beginnings and doorways". This object gives the three Latin witnesses separately — Livy's temple rule, Virgil's Gates of War and Janiculum, Ovid's Canens and hot spring — each with its passage.
Key takeaways
- The open-at-war, shut-at-peace temple is Livy's; Virgil moves the same gates back to Latinus's Latium and has Juno open them.
- Janus is not a Greek god in Roman dress — none of these texts gives him a Greek name; he belongs with Saturn and Picus in the pre-Trojan kings of Latium.
- Ovid supplies what the others lack, a family (Canens by Venilia) and an aition (the hot spring by his shrine).
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Livy says Numa built the temple of Janus "as an index of peace and war, to signify when it was open that the State was under arms, and when it was shut that all the surrounding nations were at peace", and that it had been shut only twice since Numa — after the First Punic War and after Actium under Augustus (Livy 1.19.2–4).
Virgil transfers the rite to Latium: "Twin Gates of War there be … in sleepless watch Janus the threshold keeps"; the consul opens them when the senate votes war. King Latinus refuses to open them against the Trojans, so Juno herself "swung on their hinges the barred gates of war" (Aen. 7.601).
In Latinus's palace the cedar statues of the ancestors include "gray-bearded Saturn; and the double brow of Janus' head" (Aen. 7.170), and Latinus swears the treaty "by fair Latona's radiant children twain, and two-browed Janus" (Aen. 12.195) — Janus is both an ancestral king of Latium and a god of oaths.
Evander shows Aeneas two ruined strongholds on the hills of the future Rome: "one father Janus built, and Saturn one; their names, Saturnia and Janiculum" (Aen. 8.306) — Virgil ties Janus to Saturn's exile in Latium and to the hill that bears his name.
Ovid gives Janus a family: the singing nymph Canens, wife of Picus, "whom on the hill, called Palatine, 'tis said, Venilia bore to Janus double faced" (Met. 14.320).
When the Sabines try the gate that Romulus barred and Juno opens it, Venus begs the Naiads of "a spring that welled up close to Janus' fane" to flood the path with boiling water; the gate "was made impassable by the heated fountain's flood, till Roman soldiers had regained their arms" (Met. 14.772) — Ovid's origin story for the hot spring beside the shrine of Janus.
In Livy's fetial formula for declaring war the god is invoked under a double name: "Hear, O Jupiter, and thou Janus Quirinus, and all ye heavenly gods" (Livy 1.32.9).
Questions answered
- Why were the doors of the temple of Janus opened and closed?
- Livy says Numa built the temple of Janus "as an index of peace and war, to signify when it was open that the State was under arms, and when it was shut that all the surrounding nations were at peace", and that it had been shut only twice since Numa — after the First Punic War and after Actium under Augustus (Livy 1.19.2–4). source
- What are the Gates of War in the Aeneid?
- Virgil transfers the rite to Latium: "Twin Gates of War there be … in sleepless watch Janus the threshold keeps"; the consul opens them when the senate votes war. King Latinus refuses to open them against the Trojans, so Juno herself "swung on their hinges the barred gates of war" (Aen. 7.601). source
- Why is Janus shown with two faces?
- In Latinus's palace the cedar statues of the ancestors include "gray-bearded Saturn; and the double brow of Janus' head" (Aen. 7.170), and Latinus swears the treaty "by fair Latona's radiant children twain, and two-browed Janus" (Aen. 12.195) — Janus is both an ancestral king of Latium and a god of oaths. source
- What is the Janiculum named after?
- Evander shows Aeneas two ruined strongholds on the hills of the future Rome: "one father Janus built, and Saturn one; their names, Saturnia and Janiculum" (Aen. 8.306) — Virgil ties Janus to Saturn's exile in Latium and to the hill that bears his name. source